The gravel path widened around the backside of the manor, allowing space for carriages and three-horse-wide teams. He didn't need that much room and urged his horse up the steps of the porch that spanned the back of the entire manor. Lights and noise erupted through the long-shattered floor to ceiling windows where the eastern wing met the central house. Raegar leaped off the horse, landing noiselessly, and lashed her reins to the stone railing on the porch. He slipped into the shadows among the window breaks to assess the situation before leaping into it.
Raegar looked into what was once a proud dining hall, but its splendor was long since ruined. Loads of animal scat was piled in various places in corners and along the walls, together with the detritus of leaves and dirt and other natural debris blown through the missing windows. A few rags clung to the walls and window rods, the tatters silently framing the scene within. A long table that might have once seated twenty lay splintered and askew at the long room's center, its chairs reduced to kindling. The cabinets that once lined the walls opposite Raegar to hold china and glassware still retained a few small panels of glass, but most of them had been shattered, their contents long ago looted. Blast marks along the walls and floors and the smoldering remnants of a large cabinet provided mute evidence of a spell battle only moments old.
The acrid reek of various spells and smoke drifting from the room was bearable but told Raegar that Damlath-or whatever he fought-had unleashed many more combat spells than usual. He knew the wizard memorized very few offensive spells unless he planned to be in an unavoidable fight. Usually, his repertoire consisted of many investigative spells and methods by which the pair of them stayed hidden from any potential opponents. But that day, Damlath-or whoever posed as him-seemed spoiling for a fight. Raegar looked through the broken windows and realized the battle had ventured beyond the dining room. The rogue stepped sideways and slipped inside easily, making his way to the nearest door through which he could see crackling golden energy.
He looked into an entry chamber with grand marble staircases rising over Raegar's head to the upper floors on both sides of the room. The chandelier had fallen long ago onto the hard marble floor, its metal construction twisted and broken in places but still holding a few now-dry oil lamps. Damlath stood within the massive round chandelier's center, weaving a blue-green sphere of energies upward into the domed room's center. Raegar had to move forward and through the small hallway formed by the stairs overhead to see Damlath's target.
What hovered in the room's center reflected the energy off its oily black hide, the eyes thick on its front closing to shield themselves from the bright lights. Its two massive limbs stretched apart, and the blue-green energy coruscating across its form collected around the ends of those limbs. At its base, where Raegar expected legs, he saw only a tail, as if the creature was a torso atop a teardrop shape. The creature's three heads all roared in pain and anger, its jaws distended and moving sideways or tipping the head fully back. Raegar shuddered and was glad he didn't have to fight the creature, whatever it was. Its skin moved and shifted, fingers, eyes, and mouths constantly forming and disappearing, keeping the aquamarine energy arcing across its form at all times.
The battle paused, and Raegar listened rather than leaping in to aid a no longer trusted ally.
"Now, creature, tell me why you bother me," Damlath asked. "There is no mention of guardians within Rhaelnar's Legacy."
"We know of no Rhaelnar… Guardiansssss ussssss…" the creature hissed. "Lightning and sssstormsssss awaken ussss… Awaken from Ssslumber Willing… and remember…"
"Remember what? I know you to be sharn, creatures of power and mystery. I have no qualms about killing you if your answers prove pitiful." Damlath closed his right hand, and the aquamarine globes pulled slowly together, wreathing the sharn's form in greenish arcs of energy. All its heads roared, as did at least half the mouths along its arms and trunk.
"Look, little creature," said the sharn, "into our mind, if you dare."
Damlath laughed, but it was hollow and angry, unlike the joyful mirth Raegar liked to hear. "Don't mistake me for a fool of short years, sharn. I know enough to not risk my sanity delving into your heads."
"The Awakening isss upon usss… You quicken sssoulsss without knowing what you do… The remnantsss ssspark and affect our mindsss … remind usss of ourssselvesss… The powersss that ssstir usss fragment our mind into many… bring pain memory…"
Raegar watched the sharn intently, its voice growing melancholy.
Raegar also noticed random faces pushing forth from the sharn's skin as it spoke, though the speech still came from its massive unfeatured heads atop its torso.
Damlath shook his arms in anger at the creature and said, "I could care not a whit for your minds, save what they hold. The remnants-tell me more about them! I have many of them but not all. Tell me more about them, that I may claim more than one Nether Scroll."
Raegar's brow knitted. Damlath had never expressed any interest before in the ancient lore of Netheril, let alone tracking down the sources of their ancient magic. In fact, Raegar knew Damlath loved history but willfully ignored the North's wizardly history over that of the southern Lands of Intrigue.
The exchange confirmed to Raegar that the man posing as Damlath was an imposter. The rogue looked around to see if the wizard-whoever he was-had set up a camp or at least had laid down any of the artifacts they had been collecting. He didn't see any, but a light purple glow of sparkles began forming well behind the wizard.
A black-skinned pair of four-clawed hands slid from the cluster of purple sparks and began to trace mystic symbols in the air. Small mouths at the center of the palms whispered arcane words. A beam of orange light shone from the pair of hands and enveloped the southern mage, whose form shimmered and shattered. The illusory Damlath fell away and Raegar saw his true form.
The wizard wore olive-green robes trimmed with gold runes, a hood drawn up around his face, even though Damlath's face had previously appeared exposed. The wizard turned and spotted both Raegar and the sharn's additional hands and began to laugh. The rogue gasped as he saw the wizard's hands were skeletal, as was most of his head. All that remained of his face was a shred of grayish-black skin across his forehead and down the right side of his face. Red energies glinted within dark eyesockets, suggesting eyes where no physical orbs remained. Around his torso and over his olive robes, the lich wore a harness made of black leather and a large round silver plate covered in runes.
Raegar had fought undead wizards and sorcerers before, and he knew that this lich had been impersonating Damlath, but for how long?
"Ah, Raegar. So now you know, little thief. Inconvenient. You've been a useful pawn even more unwitting than that dullard at the temple," the lich said, its jaws moving without lips and pantomiming magically produced speech. "Still, before this creature strips me of more than base illusions…"
The lich that was Damlath gestured quickly, and ice-blue bolts rocketed into the free sharn hands. Raegar was close enough to note the rapid drop in temperature and the ice and frost that clung to the once-moist black hide. The purple sparks winked out as the hands receded through them, and Raegar saw some frost appear on the sharn behind the lich, even though Damlath hadn't cast on it directly.
"Impressive, sharn. Your ability to bypass a spell designed to inhibit spellcasters is intriguing. I will learn that secret from you as well, but not before you tell me more of the remnants."
"You merely ssserve to awaken, not to claim any treasssure, little lich. We hide enigmasss far older than you, and thossse who pry never benefit from it." The sharn seemed to smile, its eyeless heads all turning toward the lich and baring their teeth.